New Vanity Pets Available For Purchase

Here in the good old U.S.A. these new puppies (Wind Rider Cub and Gryphon Hatchling) sell for $24.99 each, as this time around you’re purchasing not only the code to the in game vanity pets, but also a plush toy. Blizzard is selling the toy actually, which comes with the in game pet code, but really I’m pretty sure that most of the people who will buy these will do so for the in game pet more than the toy. I could be wrong, but that’s my guess and the reason for me listing them in that order.

In the case of the Pandaren Monk and Lil’ K.T. from the first round of microtransaction-vanity pets, half of the purchase of one pet was donated to charity. This time around it’s all going to Blizzard. Now, don’t take that as an argument from me, I’m just stating the facts for you here. You can find my thoughts on microtransactions in the posts I linked you to above (or to summarize, it doesn’t bother me).

I’m not a big fan of vanity pets, though there are a few that I like. But my wife loves them. Why does she love them? I have absolutely no idea, but that didn’t stop me from buying the monk and K.T. for her. Of course, I was also able to buy both of those two for less than the price of one of these, not to mention I didn’t have to bother with Shipping and Handling, nor did I have to pay and wait for the delivery time. Oh yeah, and sales tax, can’t forget Uncle Sam’s share of the cash now can we?

Going with the longer shipping option (8-10 days instead of 1-2), the two of these together comes out to $64.11 USD after all fees and such are applied. If you go for the higher shipping then it’s a little over $3 more.

How do I know that total? Well, I did mention my wife loves these things didn’t I?

I think getting the pets with the plushies is great for those who want the plushies, but having to spend that much money to get the pets, when you don’t care either way about the plushies and if you had the choice wouldn’t buy them, is pretty harsh.

I agree with you, Jaedia. Since we don’t care about the plushies at all it was a big price for two little pets. I can tell you for sure that if we hadn’t received our tax return and it hadn’t been noticeably higher than what we were planning, we certainly wouldn’t have bought them both. We have bought the cutest one (which is the Wind Rider in our opinion), but we wouldn’t have gotten both and we very well may have skipped them both.

I have to take my hat off to Blizzard for being so smart. They’ve got a hooked audience of 11 million players and they’re targetting them for selling nice toys and fluff pets. It’s not my cup of tea but I can’t disagree with their logic.

I did purchase the in-game panda pet last year and do kinda regret it… it doesn’t do anything and it’s just a gimick and honestly I can’t justify the high retail price of it. I may buy something else from Blizzard in the future but it will probably only be an item that has a proper function (such as a mount).

I think it was a brilliant move by Blizzard. You can look at my own example here and see that people are going to buy them regardless of the higher price. Blizzard is a company, therefor they are in this to make money, and I don’t blame them for what they’re doing at all.

I saw your post about being disappointed in the monk, and your reasons for it. Of all the pets that are available, the monk is the only one that I have any real interest in, but that flying crane pose at the end takes me back to my younger years and the hours upon hours of my life wasted away watching VHS recordings of Karate Kid I & II.

I can justify the prices for my wife because of how much fun she has with them. On a personal scale, I still don’t really care about the pets myself so I won’t bother buying them for me.

If Blizzard does offer mounts, then there’s a much higher probability that I will buy them for myself. Of course, my wife is also a big fan of mounts, so they’d get a double sell from me assuming the price was somewhat reasonable.